


Moon Phases

by FedExMarauder



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drabble, MWPP, Marauders, Moon Phases, No Dialogue, Werewolf, lycanthropy, sirius' thoughts, so you know, sorry - Freeform, this isn't beta'd at all, wolfstar if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 14:17:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16431014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FedExMarauder/pseuds/FedExMarauder
Summary: Sirius contemplates what the moon does to Remus.





	Moon Phases

The magical world had many misconceptions about werewolves. Of course, some were quite obvious, such as believing that a werewolf, even outside of wolf form, was somehow less human and more beast than the average witch or wizard. Another common mistake, however, was perhaps a bit more innocent. It was said that the moons effect on a lycanthrope was present only during the full moon. It was an easy assumption, after all the werewolf only physically turns under the influence of a full moon. The full, however, is not the only time a werewolf may feel the effects of the moon.

            Sirius Black learned this first hand after discovering one of his best mates was, in fact, a werewolf. Remus Lupin had been bitten when he was very young, and so he’d grown up with the constant push-and-pull influence of the moon on his body.

            Sirius thought it was a lot like ocean tides. On and near the full moon, high tide for Remus, the wolf pushed him up from the waterline and drove him nearly mad with shortened nerves and intensified anxiety. It burst its banks and flooded his senses, heightening them to those of the wolf he would become in the night. Remus before the full was flighty and distracted, wide eyes snapping from one stimulus to the next, and his form flinching away from the slightest touch as though his skin was crawling off his bones.

            After the torture of the full was over, though, Remus would calm. Sirius noted that about the time the waning gibbous was turning into a waning half, Remus was settled and calm. He was just as active as any other wizard, and no more so than the average, either. It could almost be described as normal, if such a thing existed. He was sharp-tongued and alert, the way Sirius thought he might always be if not for the monster who stole through his window all those many years ago.

            As the waning crescent faded to the new moon, Remus wilted. It was like low tide, Sirius imagined, as the water moved out to lay the coastline bare and vulnerable. With no moon in the sky at night, the wolf inside Remus receded and took with him all the extra energy and strength usually imparted to the young Gryffindor. Sirius had to wonder if it was because Remus had lived with the wolf so long, and through such a young age, that the new moon had such a powerful effect on him. His body must have been used to being bolstered by the moon, and without it, fatigue and illness plagued the boy for days. Some months he couldn’t will himself out of bed, least of all down the steps and into the castle. He was pale and sickly, his eyes shadowed and dull with exhaustion. The new moon was the farthest Remus could ever be from the wolf, but that freedom exacted a heavy tax.

            The curse had wrought other, more permanent, changes to Remus. His eyes were a peculiar shade of amber, and they seemed to intensify as the moon waxed full. Sirius swore the lycanthrope’s canines were sharper and longer than they ought to be, as well, though he couldn’t say it with any certainty, and the tips of his ears were a bit more pointed than most. His joints and bones ached with the cold, even at such a young age, and his hands shook no matter the moon phase. Scars crisscrossed like a map over his body, his arms and legs striped in old memories of terrible nights locked away with the wolf. A large bite scar on his left hip remained from the original attack, still as fresh as it had been over a decade before. Remus hated his scars, Sirius knew. Remus hated everything having to do with the wolf and the curse. Sirius would always disagree, the scars and even the wolf made Remus who he was after all, but there was a set of marks in particular that dropped a cold stone of guilt and shame in the young Black’s belly. Ripped across Remus’ face were three faded lines, running from just by the inside of his right eye to the corner of his left jaw, where they were gouged by enraged claws one night after a missed opportunity to feed. A missed opportunity to feed that Sirius had presented in the first place, when he coaxed a particularly grimy Slytherin to enter into the territory of the wolf and revealed the truth of Remus and his mystery to perhaps their greatest enemy. The prank failed, thank Merlin, but the wolf was driven mad by the sight and smell of a living, flesh-and-blood human being taken from its den. It tore its body, Remus’ body, and the scars over his face were only the most easily visible results. It took half the year and the entire summer, but the act was forgiven. The scars still remained.

            Lycanthropy was more than just turning into a wolf during the full. It frustrated Sirius to hear people say otherwise, when he watched Remus sit tired and listless in class days before the new moon or heard his joints groan and creak on cold winter nights while the boy tried so desperately to find a sleeping position that didn’t make his bones ache. Something else a lot of people were mistaken about was Sirius’ capacity to care for others, and Remus in particular had taken root in the softest part of the pureblood’s heart.

            The one thing the moon could never touch, though, was Remus’ heart. Sirius was sure of that much. The heart was were Remus lived, no matter how logical he might try to be, and Sirius decided that that much would always be true.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a super short drabble because I'm sitting desk for 4 hours and I'm bored out of my mind, it's not meant to be awesome but if I write wolfstar in the future it might give you an idea of the headcanons I'm coming from?


End file.
